{"id":417539,"date":"2025-01-30T12:23:26","date_gmt":"2025-01-30T11:23:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/01\/30\/romania-candidati-georgescu-dan-antonescu-2\/"},"modified":"2025-01-30T15:17:54","modified_gmt":"2025-01-30T14:17:54","slug":"in-the-upcoming-presidential-elections-in-romania-everyone-will-be-against-georgescu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/01\/30\/in-the-upcoming-presidential-elections-in-romania-everyone-will-be-against-georgescu\/","title":{"rendered":"In the upcoming presidential elections in Romania, everyone will be against Georgescu"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – Romanian politics seems to be recovering after the historic annulment of the November presidential elections<\/strong> by the Constitutional Court following Russian interference certified by the Bucharest intelligence agencies<\/strong>. Now that there are dates for the elections<\/strong> for the new top leadership of the Balkan state, parties are beginning to position themselves<\/strong>, forming alignments that already appear quite clear-cut.<\/p>\n

It took about a month from the shock verdict<\/a> of the Romanian Constitutional Court<\/strong> which, on\u00a0December 6, invalidated the result of the first round of the presidential election<\/strong> held on November 24, which resulted in the\u00a0surprise victory<\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0C\u0103lin Georgescu<\/strong>, an independent ultranationalist and pro-Russian<\/strong> candidate. According to the judges, who based their decision on declassified intelligence reports, the entire process had to start over again because of heavy interference from Russia<\/strong> (whose disinformation campaigns allegedly erupted mainly on the TikTok\u00a0platform<\/strong>, currently under investigation by the European Commission<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

In the end,\u00a0on January 8, the government announced<\/a> the new election: May 4, the first round, and the runoff on May 18 between the two candidates with the most votes if no one obtains an absolute majority. Georgescu would have challenged<\/a> the leader of the liberal-conservative opposition<\/strong> in the USR, Elena Lasconi<\/strong> if the first round had not been annulled.<\/p>\n

\"Elena<\/a>
USR leader Elena Lasconi celebrates the result of the first round in the Romanian presidential election, Nov. 25, 2024 (photo: Daniel Mihailescu\/Afp)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Now, however,\u00a0according to available polls, the situation has changed<\/a>. In first place<\/strong> in the voting intentions of Romanian voters, Georgescu<\/strong> remains firmly in the lead with even higher support than two months ago–currently around 37-38 percent<\/strong>, thanks in part to\u00a0endorsement from\u00a0the<\/a>\u00a0far right\u00a0AUR<\/strong> (which, after the early December legislatures, became<\/a> the second-largest party in Parliament in terms of<\/strong>\u00a0number of elected members), but not enough to avoid a runoff.<\/p>\n

However, depending on the poll, the challenger in the second round<\/strong>\u00a0could vary. According to the survey conducted by Avangarde<\/i><\/a>, in addition to Georgescu, advancing to the runoff with 25 percent of the votes would be\u00a0Crin Antonescu<\/strong>, the unitary candidate<\/strong> chosen by<\/a>\u00a0the parties who make up the coalition executive of Bucharest<\/strong>, namely the social democrats of the PSD<\/strong>, the liberals of the PNL<\/strong> and the Hungarian minority,\u00a0UDMR<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"Crin<\/a>
The (likely) candidate of the Romanian governing coalition Crin Antonescu (right) for the European Parliament in 2012 (photo: Bernal Revert\/European Parliament)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Antonescu, a\u00a0longtime NLP politician,<\/strong> and former interim president<\/i> in 2012 (as Romanians voted in a referendum on the impeachment of then-President Traian B\u0103sescu<\/strong>), will have to wait until Feb. 2 for the formal appointment,<\/strong>\u00a0which could be impacted<\/a>\u00a0by the bickering between government allies<\/strong> that followed a theft of Romanian historical artifacts from a museum in the Netherlands.<\/p>\n

However, a more recent poll conducted\u00a0by Curs<\/i><\/a> indicates that Nicu\u0219or Dan<\/strong> would reach\u00a0the second round with a solid 21 percent. Dan, the current mayor of the capital<\/strong>, has seen his popularity rise in recent weeks, and last night (Jan. 29),\u00a0he met<\/a> with Lasconi in what appeared to be an appointment\u00a0ti\u00a0coordinate in a bid\u00a0to\u00a0join forces in the presidential round<\/strong> against rivals Georgescu and Antonescu.<\/p>\n

\n

I thank Nicu\u0219or Dan for today’s meeting. We are two people of good faith, we have a duty to put the interest of honest citizens of this country above everything else!<\/p>\n

\u270a I am responsible for the 1.7 million votes that Romanians have now given me… ##pic.twitter.com\/BLUoqHiVgM<\/a>##<\/p>\n

– Elena Lasconi (@ElenaLasconi) January 29, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The race to defeat the pro-Russian radical right candidate<\/strong> is thus wide open in Romania, even though, at the moment,\u00a0Georgescu would seem capable of winning on the ballot<\/strong> against both Antonescu and Dan. However, polls remain polls and\u00a0should be taken with a grain of salt: after all, they were not able to predict even the stunning\u00a0victory of the outsider<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

What is certain, however, is that that victory triggered yet\u00a0another political crisis in the Balkan country<\/strong>, both due to\u00a0the strong signal of discontent sent by<\/strong>\u00a0the electorate of the centrist establishment<\/strong> – which was confirmed in the most recent elections when far-right forces<\/strong> almost\u00a0won almost one-third of the seats<\/strong> in Parliament – and\u00a0due to the controversies<\/a> caused by the court’s decision (unprecedented in Western history) to annul the vote, which generated cross-criticism<\/strong> at the political level and\u00a0further distrust in the national democratic processes<\/strong> by Romanian society.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After the annulment of the first round of voting last December, Bucharest has set dates to repeat the poll. The ultranationalist candidate will face the challenger from the ruling coalition, Crin Antonescu, and the capital’s mayor Nicu\u0219or Dan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7876,"featured_media":411992,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25681],"tags":[30313,29945,29785,30312,29805,29435],"class_list":["post-417539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-calin-georgescu-en","tag-horsehair-antonescu-at","tag-elena-lasconi-en","tag-election-presidential-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7876"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417539"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":417575,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417539\/revisions\/417575"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}